We use
Photoshop 7 in this class, but the lessons are valid for just about
every version of Photoshop, including Elements. The concepts are
the same regardless of Photoshop version.

This is the first of two courses
covering Photoshop's various Filters. The purpose of these two
classes is to familiarize you with all of the different kinds of
filtering effects available in Photoshop. In today's class you will
learn:

Sharpen Filter

Blur Filter

Artistic Filters

Brush Strokes Filters

We begin by learning about the
Sharpen Filters: sharpen, sharpen more, sharpen edges, unsharp mask,
radius, tolerance, and using fade. You can use these filters to clear
up blurry pictures.

Before - blurry

After - with sharpen more filter

Next, we'll learn the exact opposite
- how to blur different regions of your photo with the blur filters:
bluring wrinkles and backgrounds, motion blur, radial blur, and smart
blur. You can see how a little bit of blur tends to soften up grandma's
wrinkles:

We can also use blur to
de-emphasize regions of a photo. For example, the background foliage
in this picture is a bit distracting...

With a little blur, you don't
notice it as much...

This is great for taking sports
photography pictures that were taken with a really good camera (so there
is no blur) and faking the action...

Before - no blur

After - with a little motion blur
added

After - or how about one of the
players?

Next we'll learn about all of the
different Artistic Filters, such as colored pencil, cutout, dry
brush, film grain, fresco, neon glow, paint daubs, palette knife,
plastic wrap, posted edges, rough pastels, smudge stick, sponge,
underpainting, and watercolor. Here are just a few of the cool
effects...

This is a great class if you want to get into different effects
for modifying and filtering your artwork. If you want to add
these different artistic effects to your images, you need to become
familiar with all of the different filters.

Richard on 6/8/2008:
Photoshop 204 is the first of two courses covering Photoshop's various Filters. The purpose of these two classes is to familiarize you with all of the different kinds of filtering effects available in Photoshop. In today's class you will learn the Sharpen Filter, Blur Filter, Artistic Filters, and Brush Strokes Filters.
Click here for the full outline.